Lead Partner: Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Tourism

Context Many business intelligence surveys demonstrate that Digital Realities (Virtual reality and Augmented reality) are becoming a huge market trend in many sectors, and North America is taking the lead in this emerging domain. Tourism is no exception and the sector in Europe must innovate to get ahead of the curve of this technological revolution, but this innovation needs public support. Partnership In order to provide labs, startups and SMEs willing to take this unique opportunity with the most appropriate support policies, 9 partner organizations from 8 countries (FR, IT, HU, UK, NO, ES, PL, NL) decided to work together: regional and local authorities, development agencies, private non-profit association and universities. Objective Thanks to their complementary experiences and know-how, they intend to improve policies of the partner regions (structural funds and regional policies), in order to foster a tourist channelled innovation in the Digital Realities sector. Approach All partners will work together on policy analysis tasks before exchanging their best initiatives and transferring them from one country to another. This strong cooperation will allow them to build the best conditions to foster innovation thanks to more effective structural funds policies and regional policies.

Lead Partner: County Council of Huelva 

Cycling is a European success story tells the first heading of the Declaration on Cycling as a climate friendly Transport Mode. Over the last decade, cycle­tourism has increased exponentially in Europe, both in terms of infrastructure & service and public attendance. The cycling tourism industry generates an annual turnover of €44bn. It represents nowadays a strategic priority for many territories in Europe mostly due to its potential for attracting added­value tourism. Cycle-tourism has clearly taken substantial advantage from the extended urban mobility developments based on bicycle. New populations of cyclists are claiming for new experiences brought by new models of sustainable tourism. This is also extremely challenging for territorial management and land­use planning since Cycle­tourism represents a powerful opportunity to provide infrastructures and create services and employments in remote areas. In that sense, natural heritage could deeply benefit of cycle­tourism. Many territories in Europe are characterized by extended natural heritage in which growth is always subordinated to the strict evaluation regarding preservation of biodiversity and ecosystems at risk. We remind that the EU2020 strategy fostering sustainable environmental development and an efficient use of resources is mandatory for taking off green and competitive economy. Therefore, ECO­CICLE aims that bicycle becomes the official sustainable transport to access natural heritage while fostering endogenous economical revival through a popular modality of tourism. In order to determine the best conditions to develop cycle­tourism in natural heritage context, ECO­CICLE builds on the experience of the partnership, especially on our advisory partner ECF. Main objective of ECO­CICLE is to improve operational programs and regional development policies to allocate SF and other investments funds (about 9M€ is targeted through 24 new projects) in infrastructure and support to cycletourism service providers.